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Use our search function below to sort the films by their English title, the names of directors, or their country of origin. Films can also be filtered by series, genre, or Vancouver International Film Festival venue. You can also browse by film series by visiting our Browse By Series page.

Finland, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Czech Republic

Thirty years after achieving the zenith of his career in grease paint, an acclaimed actor returns from self-imposed exile for one last show in Prague. Reunited with his former partners, he and his colleagues attempt to restage their greatest performance, stave off old rivalries and ensure that time doesn’t have the last laugh. Viktor Tauš’ poignant film reminds us that tragicomedy is the lifeblood of clowning.

Germany, South Africa

Completed just prior to Mandela’s passing, Khalo Matabane’s deeply personal documentary finds the celebrated filmmaker wrestling with his conflicted feelings concerning the icon’s life and legacy. Posing provocative questions to world leaders, South Africans and himself, he foregoes nostalgia and assembles “a wonderful exploration of a complicated man and even more complicated issues that feels like vital viewing.”—POV Magazine. Winner, Special Jury Prize, IDFA 2013.

Audience Award Winners, History

France, Hungary, South Korea

Hungarian director/ringmaster György Pálfi (Hukkle) turns an apartment building into seven rings of carnivalesque hell in this stunner. Pálfi essays the grotesqueries of modern life through stories that run the gamut from social realism to sci-fi. “It’s thrilling to see a director in such clear command of the cinematic medium operating in such a playfully stylized way.”—Variety. Winner, Best Director, Karlovy Vary 2014.

Experimental & Avant garde, Audience Award Winners, Fantasy

South Korea

Yoon (Cha Seungwon) is the ultimate hard man, a battle-scarred cop who gets his man by any means necessary. But Yoon has a secret: she’s a woman trapped in a man’s body. Arch-satirist Jang Jin delivers all the thrills and ultraviolence we’ve come to expect from Korean cop/gangster movies, but with a very subversive twist. Tony Rayns

Co-written (and reputedly also supervised) by Bong Joonho, this is an exceptionally gripping story set at sea between Korea and China. A fishing-boat skipper is persuaded (against his better judgment) to smuggle a group of 25 illegal immigrants from China, all of them ethnic Koreans, ashore: what could possibly go wrong? Like Memories of Murder, this is based on a real incident notorious in Korea. Tony Rayns

Named after the coffee shop in which several key scenes are set, Hong Sangsoo’s latest centres on a Japanese man (Kase Ryu, Like Someone in Love) who fetches up in Seoul in search of a long-lost girlfriend. His amusingly awkward encounters with several other women and his landlady’s adult son make for Hong’s wittiest deconstruction of the rom-com in some time. Tony Rayns

Im Kwontaek’s 102nd filmis no less compelling than any of his earlier masterworks. Ahn Songgi stars as a company director who knows better than to develop a crush on his new woman marketing manager—especially while caring for his dying wife. Elegantly shot, this is a wise and worldly film, all the more moving for its subtlety and emotional restraint. Tony Rayns

VIFF has screened many of Jung Yoonsuk’s short films, so the global success of his feature-length essay is no surprise to us. He starts from some notorious, nihilistic murders in the early 1990s, then opens out to examine the spaces between the death penalty and murder, between negligence and culpability, between dictatorship and freedom. A dynamic blow to Korea’s body politic! Tony Rayns

Crime, History

Japan, South Korea

An old VIFF tradition is revived in this electrifying anthology of new indie animation from Japan—with a special bonus in the form of Hwang Gyuil’s Deaf and Wind from Korea. A wide range of graphic styles and techniques, tackling everything from a ninja vendetta to the secret origin of the universe. Tony Rayns

Animation

Spain, Argentina

For sheer entertainment value, you’ll be hard-pressed to beat this outrageous anthology film. One of Cannes’ most buzzed about discoveries, Damián Szifrón’s third feature plays like a calling card from a preposterously talented newcomer, it’s so chock-full of crazy ideas and verve. “Delicious, horrible, scary and scabrous… Szifrón brings off a very difficult trick: making something genuinely funny and genuinely scary at the same time."—Guardian

Comedy, Action, Thrills & Suspense

Spain, France

Incisively and with great compassion, Jaime Rosales sketches the lives of Spain’s lost generation through the relationship of Carlos (Carlos Rodríguez) and Natalia (Ingrid García Jonsson). "An intelligent, bracing study of Spanish twentysomethings doomed to unemployment and disillusion… Brilliant, challenging… [The] whole film is an audacious leap into real lives and real experiences… A powerful and heartfelt film."—Guardian